Footprints
by HalfASlug
Summary: As was his morning routine now, he slid his gaze from his hand, over the chasm-like gap between their beds and onto her sleeping form. The past few months had taught him so much about her and that he still had so much more to learn.


_A/N: I know I said I wouldn't update for a while but I couldn't sleep so I wrote this, thus keeping me awake for longer. Logic isn't my strong point._

_I am going to reply to messages at some point. Promise._

_This was written because I got sick of typing Hernione, Hermioen, Hermiome, Hermoine and Herniome. Expect a reaction to my Hary/Hrary problem any day now._

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling still owns Hrary Pot- dammit!_

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He wasn't sure when he had started sleeping with his hand held out, ready for her to take, anytime she needed him. It could have been that beautiful morning that he had woken up in Grimmauld Place with her hand so close to his. The look the two of them had shared before they had realised the third member was missing, had been so open that it took him a while to remember that she actually knew nothing of how he felt, despite his desperate and clumsy attempts to show her.

The following night, when their friend had taken residence in another room, they had both wordlessly agreed that they were staying where they were. Every night they had fallen asleep holding hands and it was like the sun had finally found his corner of the world and was shining down on it.

Now, as he blinked away the blanket of sleep, he saw his out-stretched hand and let the now-familiar hurt set in. For a few moments he clung to it, wishing he deserved the sympathy he craved, but then he pushed it back and reluctantly pulled his guilt back off the shelf and covered himself in it.

It had been a long time since he had the right to feel hard done by.

As was his morning routine now, he slid his gaze from his hand, over the chasm-like gap between their beds and onto her sleeping form. The past few months had taught him so much about her and that he still had so much more to learn. By far his favourite discovery had been that she, despite her nasty habit of rising before the sun, was a terrible morning person.

Back when life was simpler and before he had dug his own grave, lay down in it and filled it in, he hadn't ever been awake in time to see it but now it was how he started every morning.

At first, she would start shuffling around, like she was trying to fight the inevitable consciousness that was about to claim her. Eventually she would turn onto her back and slowly open her eyes, looking thoroughly upset to have been brought back to this plain. Then, rolling over onto her side, she would try and fall back to sleep, give up after about seven minutes and huff slightly as she pulled the covers back, sat up, cracked her neck and right wrist before heading to the bathroom.

For so many years he had missed this part of her routine and now he wanted to be a part of it. He wanted her to wake up and see him, next to her, still breathing deeply under the cover of sleep. He wanted her to roll over to watch him and then sigh as she clambered out of bed to start her day.

In fact, he'd take her still waking up in a foul mood, if only he were there to tease her about it.

Since forever he had hated crawling in the enormous shadow she cast as she illuminated what was ahead of her, hoping –_hoping _– for the scraps on sunlight that missed her, but now he was in the blazing light and it burnt his skin, blinded him and she was nowhere on the horizon. Every podium, accolade and prize was nothing without her there. Only now had he realised that it wasn't a shadow at all. If he had only stood on his own two feet he would have seen that he could walk by her side if he had wanted.

Because the words he had for so long kept under lock and key, he felt he could finally say if only she wanted to hear them. It was no longer rejection that he feared, but regret. If he was too late… If he had scuppered his only chance of obtaining a tiny part of the miracle that she was …

But now nothing he said could melt the Ice Queen. All of his pathetic plans had only covered coming back. Not once had he considered his plan after he had. Winging it seemed a good idea at the time but then so had storming into the rain at the time.

He had started making a point of remembering that night every day as he watched her sleep. If he didn't forget the horror of it all, then he was less likely to repeat it. Right? He wasn't enough of a monster to cause that twice, was he? And it was only because of the locket anyway.

As the memories of all the times he had made her cry flood back to him, he knew he had more than enough potential to do it all again, a vicious encore that nobody asked for, and suddenly he was awash with shame.

Above all, he was scared, so fucking scared, because her anger made her vulnerable to mistakes and it had been him that had made her angry. It was he who had wounded her. Anyway, he had long ago lost the right to be scared. Or happy. Or any of the emotions he had taken from her.

So while she doesn't know, couldn't possibly know, that he was watching, he feared for her because it felt right and it felt natural and he wanted some part of her, even if it was this.

And so, every morning, he woke up hoping she needed him and then watched her because he could.

This morning is different; it isn't slight shuffles but violent twists and he is at her side before he registers that this was a fucking stupid thing to do.

His hand, the one that has spent months – _years_ – waiting for her, reaches her shoulder and she snaps her eyes wide open and says his name in a gasp and he wonders how she can make something as simple and boring as his name sound so revered.

For a moment their eyes meet and he absorbs the echoes of hearing the three letter word that had brought him back here and once again there is that openness, that momentary lapse in which they don't know the world that clouds the periphery of their visions exists and he wishes that this was ever morning.

But like the tide to a child's beloved sand castle, reality crashes in and washes away the simple beauty they had created and they are left with nothing but the remains of a shattered dream.

She had told him to move away, to step back from the things he had been thinking the day before he fucked everything up so badly. She had said it would all end in tears if he didn't differentiate between reality and his demons. She had told him so many fucking times, that it had become static in the background of his self-imposed demise. The theme tune to his self-destruction that he only knew half of the words to because he had never listened to it properly.

He practically hummed the melody as he walked away from her heart-wrenching pleas for him to stay.

The barrier behind her eyes, the one that she had always flung open for him, closes with a crash and she tells him without words that he isn't welcome to see her like this, to see her so fragile. He isn't welcome at all.

And suddenly the sandy beach is tundra and the sun's rays are a bitter wind.

And with a look of deepest regret, the only emotion she allows him to have, he stands and walks away. Like a ghost, he leaves no footprints in the snow, no trace that he was ever there, so even if she wanted to, she couldn't find him again.

One day, he hopes he will weigh enough in her estimations to leave proof of his time spent near her and that she may one day follow him to the bed that he made for himself and lay there with him until she falls asleep.

He just hopes that one day, one beautiful, faraway day, if it happens, he is still there when she wakes up.

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_A/N2: Here is the now familiar plea for attention and love. _

_Seven Simple Years. Nominated for Romione Awards. Best Ron, Best Hermione, Best Romance. Voting open. Please do. Thank you. Link: romioneawards . tumblr . com_

_To make up for this pathetic call for votes, I urge you to go and read anything by lightonherfeet81. Every story is incredible. One of many writers who make me realise that I don't even have laurels to rest on, which is kind of awesome because all this award nonsense is going to my head. I've taken to pea-shooting caviar at passing poor people already and I've only been nominated. If I win (not going to happen), I fear I may move to LA and be sucked into LiLo's social circle. _

_The moral is read lightonherfeet81's one-shots. Well, at least it was at the start of the above paragraph._

_Thanks for reading :)_


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